As President Muhammadu Buhari begins his official visit to the United States of America today, the Peoples Democratic Party has drawn the attention of
As President Muhammadu Buhari begins his official visit to the United States of America today, the Peoples Democratic Party has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump to alleged constitutional and human rights violations in Nigeria. Also, the National Chairman of the party, Mr. Uche Secondus, on Saturday, accused Buhari of running a police state, warning that clamping down on those with opposing views was capable of truncating democracy.
Addressing journalists at a press conference on the state of the nation in Abuja, the spokesman for the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiya, urged Trump to stand up for democracy and take Buhari to task on constitutional and human rights violations in Nigeria under his watch. Lamenting that the nation had become a police state, he said Buhari had taken the country back to what it was in 1984, when the military under Buhari, took over the government violently.
Ologbondiyan said Buhari’s administration had destroyed the nation’s democratic order and eroded constitutionally- guaranteed rights of citizens, while foisting a siege mentality on the people. He said, “Nigeria is facing a perilous time; our constitution has been technically suspended; we have now become a police state; governance has reverted to the nightmares of the 1984 era, when draconian leaders held sway and forcefully held our people under the grips of military Decree 2.
“Currently, there is a total collapse of respect for constitutionally-guaranteed personal freedom. There is no regard for the natural course of justice, life in Nigeria is gradually returning to the state of nature and there is fear everywhere.Today, Nigerians are being hounded, arrested and directly detained on ‘o rder from above’, without warrant. Citizens are locked up in dehumanising detention centres without access to medical care and legal assistance just for holding political opinions that run contrary to the views of those in power at the centre.”
